Confessions 101 : To the Altar & Beyond

Confessions 101 : To the Altar & Beyond

Its been two years since I have been married now and I really had no idea what is the real deal with being actually married and whatsoever it was in my head, it is nowhere near to the real thing.

But after the first year of being in a state, where I was always completely overwhelmed, now the road seems much smoother and the bumps are within our stride now. As I have realized, that it is not about falling in love only and dreaming about marrying the perfect handsome man, I mean deny as much as you want, but us girlies start dreaming about marriage from a very small age. the whole idea of marriage has a touch of the Disney fairy-tales (on which we grow up), the romance and Fantasy mingled with it.

The reality is, and I am sure that many will agree with me, we dream about the following :

in PINK REEL of course, the total dream is in Pink…

The wedding: Bengali, Maharashtrian, Punjabi, Christian or any community that you may belong to, you dream about the weddings that you grow up attending

The trousseau : the most important; seeing elder cousins getting married in beautiful lehengas/ sarees/ gowns our little hearts got stuck on the image of the beautiful bride. All of us have put on our mom’s dresses and swirled around in front of the mirror, and dreamed about being dressed in a gossamer dress, woven with fantastical colours. And truly my wedding shopping was the one of the most enjoyable times of my life, though we did it in whirlwind week’s time

The celebrations: whatever your dream be, either a small wedding or a grand gala, or a traditional family wedding, but the celebrations involved in any wedding, the laughs, the fun, the family and friends time those are the best parts of any wedding and all of us see our own weddings in the future and dream of having the perfect time with all family and friends come together

The Actual wedding: Be it the Sat Pheras or the Wedding Vows, the Magalsutra or the Sindoor Daan, the Nikaah Nama or the Wedding kiss, whatever the custom is, to actually seal the deal in your family, you do dream about it, in PINK , generally, in most cases.

Now the most IMP The GROOM : we don’t bother about him. In most dreams he doesn’t feature and if he does, he is just some faceless guy, albeit handsome of course, in the background somewhere. Wedding is about you after all, and the groom is just a working necessity and not a desire. Heehee. He is most definitely needed, but we don’t spin our fairy wedding cantered around him, do we?

So when I met my husband and we started going out, I was lightly surprised to see that I could actually see his face in the dream sequence/ play. I realized then that I have a face to put in my dream and suddenly one more thing happened, the wedding took a backseat (It was still very important of course, that it be a perfect wedding) but now the groom was suddenly centrestage and the object of admiration and dream.

I also realized one more thing, which I have since called the Altar and beyond syndrome, it is where you can see beyond the altar and into the future and see yourself spending time with this man of your dreams in normal day to day life and this time, not in pink anymore. You can dream of actually spending time with him, just sitting idly and not doing something exotic like a holiday or partying but just sitting and maybe not even talking, but doing your own work, secure in the others company.

That is when I knew that this is the man with whom I want to spend my life, not only getting married, taking exotic vacations together or doing something very glamorous and glitzy all the time, but just living with him.